4 ms·

Once heard this in response to a discussion of an org's virtue signalling. What do you make of it, in this context? A man had been injured on a journey and was

by pizza 5y ago

Once heard this in response to a discussion of an org's virtue signalling. What do you make of it, in this context? A man had been injured on a journey and was lying on the road, wounded. A good Samaritan saw him and helped him get up. Onlookers then retorted, "Well, the good Samaritan only helped him get up to signal their virtue!"

quantified 5y ago
‘Tis more blessed to give than to receive. Means you’re preventing someone from obtaining a blessing if you don’t take their gift. And by definition, it’s less blessed to receive than to give. But if everyone only gives, no one receives, grinds to a halt. Metrics on virtue make things so difficult.
anonporridge 5y ago
An evolutionary psychologist might argue something like that. Another way to put it, is that while the individual might act selflessly with pure and honest empathy, with no conscious expectation of something in return, this kind of behavior wouldn't have survived in our gene pool if there wasn't some evolutionary advantage to behaving that way. So, the onlookers would really have to specify whether they're talking about the conscious being who is the good Samaritan or if they're talking about the unconscious entity that is the generic big brained ape that has deeply embedded survival and reproductive instincts that drive their conscious behaviors and desires outside of their control. I can simultaneously say that the person was honestly just being good while acknowledging that the biological entity may have achieved some kind of advantage by signalling their virtue. Alternatively, I could also say that the good Samaritan is actually acting in a way that is a detriment to his survival, and only happens because of a bug in his generic and psychological programming or an old beneficial feature that is no longer good for a new environment and will eventually be removed via natural selection.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  It's not self evident that virtue _signals_ are evolutionarily advantageous. Actually being virtuous is what provides a benefit to your society / tribe / species.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    Once a behavior has been socially locked in as "virtuous", then doesn't it create an incentive for individuals to signal that virtue?
    - Scarblac 5y ago
      Not necessarily, no. Why would it?
      - lossolo 5y ago
        Maybe because it's perceived as noble thing to do so people would signal that to others as benefit to themselves - to get higher status in a group.
        leaflets2 5y ago
        Maybe depends on how dumb the others are -- the easier to fool, the more effective virtue signaling would be? And, like @Scarblac wrote, sometimes it's a bad idea -- if the others see through it?
- Matumio 5y ago
  But this is humans we are taking about. Humans have evolved genetically to be maximally flexible in behaviour. Our psychology is learned from role models and repurposed by our cultural institutions[1]. So here we are, discussing a story passed down over generations, to guide our moral values. This is culture, not biology. This particular story teaches us that we should judge people by their individual intentions. Western cultures tend to judge that way[1]. Most other human cultures will ignore intentions and judge by outcome. They will also punish a whole family or clan, not an individual (except within their own clan or family). So, according to our culture, we should judge people by their intentions. What about companies? Given that a company has many legal rights of a person, maybe we should judge it like a person - by the goodness of its intentions? Or maybe we can only judge individuals. But then why do so many individuals justify what they do with the needs of a company? Even questions about death, it seems. [1] See Henrich's books: "The Secret of Our Success" and "The WEIRDest People"
  - BowBun 5y ago
    The fact that a company has the legal rights of a person is a mockery of human rights in my opinion, and Citizens United a huge mistake. That aside, I don't think you can judge the intent of a company's actions. Let's ignore the small family business for now, but if you look at a big corp, decision making is a distributed responsibility with individuals checking off their part as it passes through their department. There is no single person you can ask to determine intent. The intent of the many people making the decision could be contradictory, or someone like the CEO could be acting in bad faith and misleading his employees to approve a decision that benefits the CEO and no one else. We see this more frequently with crime or negative actions, where sometimes the CEO is the scapegoat but we conveniently forget the various VPs and individuals that contributed to the decision. My point is that companies shirk responsibility by obfuscating individual responsibility, and I think that would apply the same way to judging a company's intent. Lastly, judging implies a verdict, and you can't put a company behind bars. Yet companies are more than capable of committing atrocious crimes the likes of which rival war crimes (child labor/slavery in foreign countries, polluting waterways/airways and poisoning entire cities, running propaganda campaigns against the interest of public health, etc.) I find it ridiculous that a company can enjoy our rights but shirk our duties and accountability.
- magpi3 5y ago
  > Alternatively, I could also say that the good Samaritan is actually acting in a way that is a detriment to his survival, and only happens because of a bug in his generic and psychological programming or an old beneficial feature that is no longer good for a new environment and will eventually be removed via natural selection. Evolution does not "work" on behalf of individuals. It works on behalf of species. So if a member of a species is willing to sacrifice himself or take risks for the whole, that is an evolutionary feature not a bug. If a species were truly focused on the individual, I imagine it would quickly die out, which, let's face it, seems like a threat to our species in our modern world when people choose not to have kids because they don't want the responsibilties involved.
- nine_k 5y ago
  To reap benefits of cooperation, there is no need to signal it. It still helps the species survive and thrive, even if the only organism aware of an act of cooperation is the one providing help.
  - watwut 5y ago
    People mimic what they see. Seeing other people be helping makes people more helping. Seeing them being selfish makes one more selfish. That is on of vectors how culture is created.
telesilla 5y ago
People forget: in this story, the Samaritans were enemies and known to be hostile. So how is it virtue signaling, to another group of people to whom you don't want to belong? In this story it was an act of altruism.
- nindalf 5y ago
  The Samaritan knew this was his opportunity to be immortalised in a religious text so he pretended to be extra good. And he nearly got away with it for 2400 years, until all of us in this thread figured it out.
svachalek 5y ago
In an ideal world, the onlookers are secretly good souls, working acts of kindness and charity away from the public eye. In practice, they typically have no virtue to signal, and their comments are merely a variation of "sour grapes".
bsder 5y ago
To the person injured, the reason for being helped is less important than the fact that he was HELPED. Too many people will ignore things like this. Too many people will stand around helplessly--if nothing else, at least call 911. The number of times I have been the first person to actually call 911 at an accident is embarassingly high--I have only ever been the first person on site once. The rest of the time a crowd was gathering but nobody bothered to call 911. Personally, I'll take help even if they're doing it selfishly. And I'll thank you just the same.
jazzdev 5y ago
I don't think of it as virtue signal as much as it is community building, which certainly has a reproductive advantage if the community is stronger because of it.
Aeolun 5y ago
They say that, but what actually bothers them is that it makes them look bad. They might have wanted to help the man, but they all invented reasons not to, because they knew the majority would respond exactly as they did…
- SamBam 5y ago
  Precisely. These are the kinds of people who say that buying a more energy-efficient car/biking/eating less meat/volunteering/donating to charity etc is "virtue signaling," because they're just pissed off that it makes them look bad.
sailfast 5y ago
If the Samaritan had tweeted about how he felt the person really was deserving of help, he would have been signaling. Maybe they scheduled a seminar for their company on how best to help people after having walked by? But the Samaritan acted. Helped someone. Did a thing. Action is not signaling. Action is action. Maybe it helps one’s reputation doing it for the Gram, but you are actually helping another person and that is something. In this case it was at the cost of their own reputation given how Samaritans were viewed at the time. The Bible might say that if you are doing it only because of how you feel or what it means reputationally it is not the same as doing it out of compassion alone, but it’s still doing something and different than signaling.
- SamBam 5y ago
  Giving employees time to grieve, cancelling meetings, making space where people can talk -- those are all actions, not a company virtue signaling.
- saghm 5y ago
  > But the Samaritan acted. Helped someone. Did a thing. > Action is not signaling. Action is action. I don't really understand why those would have to be exclusive. I think taking action to help people is important, and if suddenly everyone became aware every time someone helped someone else to the point where it became an expectation, I guess I don't really see why this would be a problem. At the end of the day, if more people are genuinely being helped due to being charitable becoming table stakes, I don't really care whether the help only happened due to ego or due to actual benevolence. I can see it becoming a problem if people weren't actually helping people and only signalling, but I don't really see how that would apply to companies giving people time and space to grieve and then also setting the example for the rest of industry.
philwelch 5y ago
Virtue signaling would be if you took a picture of the guy and posted it on social media complaining that such an outcome was possible in this world without doing anything that could actually help.

by pizza 5y ago

quantified 5y ago

‘Tis more blessed to give than to receive. Means you’re preventing someone from obtaining a blessing if you don’t take their gift. And by definition, it’s less blessed to receive than to give. But if everyone only gives, no one receives, grinds to a halt. Metrics on virtue make things so difficult.

anonporridge 5y ago

An evolutionary psychologist might argue something like that. Another way to put it, is that while the individual might act selflessly with pure and honest empathy, with no conscious expectation of something in return, this kind of behavior wouldn't have survived in our gene pool if there wasn't some evolutionary advantage to behaving that way. So, the onlookers would really have to specify whether they're talking about the conscious being who is the good Samaritan or if they're talking about the unconscious entity that is the generic big brained ape that has deeply embedded survival and reproductive instincts that drive their conscious behaviors and desires outside of their control. I can simultaneously say that the person was honestly just being good while acknowledging that the biological entity may have achieved some kind of advantage by signalling their virtue. Alternatively, I could also say that the good Samaritan is actually acting in a way that is a detriment to his survival, and only happens because of a bug in his generic and psychological programming or an old beneficial feature that is no longer good for a new environment and will eventually be removed via natural selection.

dahfizz 5y ago
It's not self evident that virtue _signals_ are evolutionarily advantageous. Actually being virtuous is what provides a benefit to your society / tribe / species.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Once a behavior has been socially locked in as "virtuous", then doesn't it create an incentive for individuals to signal that virtue?
  - Scarblac 5y ago
    Not necessarily, no. Why would it?
    - lossolo 5y ago
      Maybe because it's perceived as noble thing to do so people would signal that to others as benefit to themselves - to get higher status in a group.
      - leaflets2 5y ago
        Maybe depends on how dumb the others are -- the easier to fool, the more effective virtue signaling would be? And, like @Scarblac wrote, sometimes it's a bad idea -- if the others see through it?
Matumio 5y ago
But this is humans we are taking about. Humans have evolved genetically to be maximally flexible in behaviour. Our psychology is learned from role models and repurposed by our cultural institutions[1]. So here we are, discussing a story passed down over generations, to guide our moral values. This is culture, not biology. This particular story teaches us that we should judge people by their individual intentions. Western cultures tend to judge that way[1]. Most other human cultures will ignore intentions and judge by outcome. They will also punish a whole family or clan, not an individual (except within their own clan or family). So, according to our culture, we should judge people by their intentions. What about companies? Given that a company has many legal rights of a person, maybe we should judge it like a person - by the goodness of its intentions? Or maybe we can only judge individuals. But then why do so many individuals justify what they do with the needs of a company? Even questions about death, it seems. [1] See Henrich's books: "The Secret of Our Success" and "The WEIRDest People"
- BowBun 5y ago
  The fact that a company has the legal rights of a person is a mockery of human rights in my opinion, and Citizens United a huge mistake. That aside, I don't think you can judge the intent of a company's actions. Let's ignore the small family business for now, but if you look at a big corp, decision making is a distributed responsibility with individuals checking off their part as it passes through their department. There is no single person you can ask to determine intent. The intent of the many people making the decision could be contradictory, or someone like the CEO could be acting in bad faith and misleading his employees to approve a decision that benefits the CEO and no one else. We see this more frequently with crime or negative actions, where sometimes the CEO is the scapegoat but we conveniently forget the various VPs and individuals that contributed to the decision. My point is that companies shirk responsibility by obfuscating individual responsibility, and I think that would apply the same way to judging a company's intent. Lastly, judging implies a verdict, and you can't put a company behind bars. Yet companies are more than capable of committing atrocious crimes the likes of which rival war crimes (child labor/slavery in foreign countries, polluting waterways/airways and poisoning entire cities, running propaganda campaigns against the interest of public health, etc.) I find it ridiculous that a company can enjoy our rights but shirk our duties and accountability.
magpi3 5y ago
> Alternatively, I could also say that the good Samaritan is actually acting in a way that is a detriment to his survival, and only happens because of a bug in his generic and psychological programming or an old beneficial feature that is no longer good for a new environment and will eventually be removed via natural selection. Evolution does not "work" on behalf of individuals. It works on behalf of species. So if a member of a species is willing to sacrifice himself or take risks for the whole, that is an evolutionary feature not a bug. If a species were truly focused on the individual, I imagine it would quickly die out, which, let's face it, seems like a threat to our species in our modern world when people choose not to have kids because they don't want the responsibilties involved.
nine_k 5y ago
To reap benefits of cooperation, there is no need to signal it. It still helps the species survive and thrive, even if the only organism aware of an act of cooperation is the one providing help.
- watwut 5y ago
  People mimic what they see. Seeing other people be helping makes people more helping. Seeing them being selfish makes one more selfish. That is on of vectors how culture is created.

telesilla 5y ago

People forget: in this story, the Samaritans were enemies and known to be hostile. So how is it virtue signaling, to another group of people to whom you don't want to belong? In this story it was an act of altruism.

nindalf 5y ago
The Samaritan knew this was his opportunity to be immortalised in a religious text so he pretended to be extra good. And he nearly got away with it for 2400 years, until all of us in this thread figured it out.

svachalek 5y ago

In an ideal world, the onlookers are secretly good souls, working acts of kindness and charity away from the public eye. In practice, they typically have no virtue to signal, and their comments are merely a variation of "sour grapes".

bsder 5y ago

To the person injured, the reason for being helped is less important than the fact that he was HELPED. Too many people will ignore things like this. Too many people will stand around helplessly--if nothing else, at least call 911. The number of times I have been the first person to actually call 911 at an accident is embarassingly high--I have only ever been the first person on site once. The rest of the time a crowd was gathering but nobody bothered to call 911. Personally, I'll take help even if they're doing it selfishly. And I'll thank you just the same.

jazzdev 5y ago

I don't think of it as virtue signal as much as it is community building, which certainly has a reproductive advantage if the community is stronger because of it.

Aeolun 5y ago

They say that, but what actually bothers them is that it makes them look bad. They might have wanted to help the man, but they all invented reasons not to, because they knew the majority would respond exactly as they did…

SamBam 5y ago
Precisely. These are the kinds of people who say that buying a more energy-efficient car/biking/eating less meat/volunteering/donating to charity etc is "virtue signaling," because they're just pissed off that it makes them look bad.

sailfast 5y ago

If the Samaritan had tweeted about how he felt the person really was deserving of help, he would have been signaling. Maybe they scheduled a seminar for their company on how best to help people after having walked by? But the Samaritan acted. Helped someone. Did a thing. Action is not signaling. Action is action. Maybe it helps one’s reputation doing it for the Gram, but you are actually helping another person and that is something. In this case it was at the cost of their own reputation given how Samaritans were viewed at the time. The Bible might say that if you are doing it only because of how you feel or what it means reputationally it is not the same as doing it out of compassion alone, but it’s still doing something and different than signaling.

SamBam 5y ago
Giving employees time to grieve, cancelling meetings, making space where people can talk -- those are all actions, not a company virtue signaling.
saghm 5y ago
> But the Samaritan acted. Helped someone. Did a thing. > Action is not signaling. Action is action. I don't really understand why those would have to be exclusive. I think taking action to help people is important, and if suddenly everyone became aware every time someone helped someone else to the point where it became an expectation, I guess I don't really see why this would be a problem. At the end of the day, if more people are genuinely being helped due to being charitable becoming table stakes, I don't really care whether the help only happened due to ego or due to actual benevolence. I can see it becoming a problem if people weren't actually helping people and only signalling, but I don't really see how that would apply to companies giving people time and space to grieve and then also setting the example for the rest of industry.

philwelch 5y ago

Virtue signaling would be if you took a picture of the guy and posted it on social media complaining that such an outcome was possible in this world without doing anything that could actually help.